Long before there was the Dave Matthews Band, Matchbox Twenty or even Nirvana, there was Toad the Wet Sprocket. First introduced to the world via their 1990 smash album Fear, the Santa Barbara foursome racked up countless Top 40 hits throughout the 90’s and sold millions of albums worldwide.

Fast forward to 1997, more than ten years after the band initially got together. They were putting the finishing touches on their sixth album, Coil. As Toad headed into their twelfth year as a band together, time and patience began catching up to them.

“We started when I was 16,” said lead singer Glen Phillips. “So we needed some time to figure out what we were doing. We’d ask, ‘is anybody having a good time here anymore?’ And there’d be no answer.”

“None of us cared enough about it.” said guitarist Todd Nichols. “We were just going through the motions.”

By the time Coil was released in late-1997 and singles “Come Down” and “Whatever I Fear” landed on the charts, Toad the Wet Sprocket decided to call it quits.

All though it had been stirring for a while, the break-up can’t be attested to any one incident. “There weren’t huge blowups,” said Phillips. “It wouldn’t make a very good story. We were just really catty and bitchy. We’d show up and try to practice and it was just dead.”

So Toad the Wet Sprocket dropped off the face of the earth, reappearing only in the form of side projects. Todd Nichols and bass player Dean Dinning, for instance, formed the independent band Lapdog.

“Lapdog is my project,” said Nichols. “So I had to make every single decision, which is a lot different than Toad, which is a group democracy.”

Phillips found himself embarking for the first time in his life on a solo career, a situation that was dramatically different from Toad the Wet Sprocket, according to the singer/songwriter.

“My expectations were very off base,” said Phillips. “I’d always done things and they worked. I mean, we went from Toad with a big tour bus, to me with a couple of t-shirts and a guitar. It was great though. I love the intimate setting of me and an acoustic guitar, but I’m ready to rock again. I haven’t played an electric guitar in a while, and putting on a Tele(caster) and cranking an amp is really fun.”

Once again we jump ahead, this time to the year 2002. The Counting Crows have just released their fourth studio album Hard Candy, and are looking for a solid opening act for their tour in support of the record. Literally days before they phone Glen Phillips asking if Toad the Wet Sprocket might reform to open a few dates, Phillips made a similar call to Nichols, Dinning and drummer Randy Guss.

“A few friends asked me in a period of a week why Toad hadn’t done anything in a while,” said Phillips. “And I used to have a good answer, but I didn’t anymore. So, I gave everybody a call, and they were all into it. Then the Counting Crows called, and that was the perfect way to cement it.”

After five years, it seemed natural for the band to start things up again. The pressure has died down, they’re off their record company’s leash and the bickering has faded.

“I think it was a matter of letting time pass,” said Phillips. “We got together at such a young age, and we never did anything else. In the last five years, we developed individual lives, and we can bring new things into it.”

“Now it’s really easy,” said Nichols. “We don’t have big huge goals. We don’t have a record company where we have to put out five albums. We’re just doing it for ourselves right now and that feels good.”

The only remaining question in the saga of Toad the Wet Sprocket is when we will hear new material from the band.

“There’s gonna be a serious amount of stuff going on this year, with my solo project and Lapdog,” said Phillips. “But hopefully Toad will do a record this year.”

The reformed Toad the Wet Sprocket will be in San Francisco at the Warfield opening for the Counting Crows on Dec. 16, 17, 20, 21 and 22.